India’s newly appointed Test captain, Shubman Gill, is all set for his maiden assignment, as India will play a five-match Test series against England. However, he recently sat down with former India wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik on Sky Sports, talking about what leading the Indian team in Test cricket meant for him and his family as well.

He also revealed that not even his father, Lakhwinder Gill, who played a key role in shaping his cricket career, had dreamt of him leading the Indian team in Test format.

“Honestly, DK bhai, I don’t even think he dreamt of me being the Indian Test captain, like, even myself as well. All I remember when I was young, when I was a kid, I just wanted to play for India, and I wanted to perform for India, and I wanted to win matches. It was like, not even in my dreams, I thought, ‘Oh, I wanted to be the captain of the Indian cricket team,’” Shubman Gill said.

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“All my dream was to be able to represent India and perform and win matches for India. So, yeah, he called me when the news broke out, I think a couple of days before, but I knew sometime before, but I didn’t break it to him because I was like, ‘When it’s official, I’ll tell him then.’ But we had a very heartfelt conversation once he got to know that I’ve been named the captain,” Gill shared again.

Shubman Gill, who had captained a second-string Indian team in a five-match T20I series in Zimbabwe last year, has a lot of work to do in the format as they have to play without their key players – Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and R Ashwin as well. He will also be under pressure to make sure India becomes a force to be reckoned with in the Test format, both home and away formats as well.

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“The expectations, I mean, I’ve had this conversation, I think, numerous times with ‘Gauti Bhai’ and ‘Ajit Bhai’; they just want me to be able to express myself as a leader. And there are; I mean, that’s what they have told me. There are no expectations they do. They are not expecting me to, you know, to do something that I’m not capable of,” he shared.

“So in terms of that, I don’t think from them there are any expectations, or there is any pressure, but you definitely have some kind of expectations from yourself as a leader and as a player. So those are the expectations that I have from myself, but it’s not so much from them,” Shubman Gill concluded.